The Ward

Year:  2010
Director:  John Carpenter
Screenplay:  Michael Rasmussen and Shawn Rasmussen
Starring:  Amber Heard, Mamie Gummer, Danielle Panabaker, Laura-Leigh, Lyndsy Fonseca, Mika Boorem, Jared Harris
Running Time:  90 minutes
Genre:  Horror, psychological

This is a fairly average, low to mid budget horror film.  In the year 1966, in North Bend, Oregon, Kristen (Heard) is arrested after setting fire to a remote farmhouse.  She is taken to a psychiatric hospital and placed on a secure ward which she shares with four other young women:  friendly and artistic Iris (Fonseca), vain and arrogant Sarah (Panabaker), tough Emily (Gummer) and timid and childlike Zoey (Laura-Leigh).  On the ward they are treated by the sinister Doctor Stringer (Harris) who is using a range of experimental techniques.  Kristen soon discovers that the ward hides some very dark secrets when she learns that a large number of patients have mysteriously gone missing and never been seen again.  She also finds herself haunted by a hideous female figure.

This was John Carpenter's first feature film since 2001's Ghosts of Mars, and while it fails to rise to the levels of his best work, such as Halloween (1978), it remains watchable enough.  Set almost entirely in the claustrophobic confines of the hospital, with engaging performances from the cast, Carpenter opens his box of tricks and provides plenty of slick shocks and scares.  The problem is that everything feels very much by the numbers, with nothing that fans will not have seen countless times before.  A twist before the end is initially interesting but ultimately unsatisfying. 

It's not really a bad film at all, it's just bland.  Carpenter is a great horror director and has a legacy of some truly spectacular work, but here it just feels like he is merely going through the motions.  It's far from being the worse of his output but then it is nowhere near his best.  Fans will have seen it all before, but there is still enough to make it an entertaining enough diversion.

Amber Heard is about to be sent to The Ward

  

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows

Year:  2011
Director:  Guy Ritchie
Screenplay:  Kieran Mulroney and Michelle Mulroney, based on characters created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Starring:  Robert Downey, Jr., Jude Law, Noomi Rapace, Jared Harris, Stephen Fry, Kelly Reilly, Rachel McAdams
Running Time:  129 minutes
Genre:  Mystery, crime, adventure, period

This film is the sequel to the blockbuster 2009 film Sherlock Holmes.  The film is very loosely based on the legendary detective stories created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, most particularly the 1893 story The Final Problem.  However the plot of the film is by and large original.  In 1891, consulting detective Sherlock Holmes (Downey, Jr.) becomes convinced that a series of bombings in France and Germany are the work of criminal mastermind Professor Moriarty (Harris).  However, the difficulty is that there is no evidence to connect the respected professor to any wrongdoing.  After enlisting the aid of his recently engaged best friend, Doctor John Watson (Law), Holmes soon realises that he has put Watson, and his bride to be (Reilly), at risk of lethal retaliation from Moriarty's men.  With the help of Holmes' well-connected brother, Mycroft (Fry), and a tough gypsy woman, Simza (Rapace), whose brother is working with Moriarty, Holmes and Watson set off on a journey across Europe, on the trail of one of the world's most powerful and dangerous criminals.

This is a hugely entertaining mix of globe-trotting adventure, explosive action and humour.  Robert Downey, Jr. is perfectly cast as Holmes and Jude Law makes for an engaging Doctor Watson, and there is great banter and chemistry between the two leads, with Watson refreshingly being portrayed as more than a match for Holmes in many places.  It will doubtless infuriate Conan Doyle purists, but for anyone else it is a fun period adventure.  The action scenes are well handled and the film provides more than enough spectacle.  As Moriarty, Jared Harris makes for a great, slippery villain, and he shares a number of great scenes with Robert Downey, Jr..  Stephen Fry is entertainingly arch as Mycroft Holmes (the scene where he turns up in the nude and happily chats away to Kelly Reilly, oblivious to her shock, is a comedy highlight).  Noomi Rapace is also impressive, lending gravitas to a fairly underwritten role.  The movie lacks any real surprises, the suspense in the film coming not so much from discovering who the villain is, because it is made clear right from the outset, but instead from how Holmes and Watson will unravel the criminal plot in time.  It also tends to meander at times, but mostly succeeds in being an entertaining, light-hearted, adventure romp, which will doubtless please fans of the original. 

Robert Downey, Jr., Noomi Rapace and Jude Law in Sherlock Holmes:  A Game of Shadows